Daily Deals: Dead bodies, sexy doms, and a favorite Linda Howard

From a red-hot erotica writer comes an original eBook—a sensual romp across the playgrounds of the unbelievably rich and extremely sexy.

Elisabeth Anderson has seen Trevor and his friends at the infamous Manhattan BDSM club WhipperSnapper, where everyone calls them the BAD Boys, for “Billionaire Arrogant Doms.” The BAD Boys—Trevor Brooks, Marc Wilde, and Roman Chase—are aptly named; they’ve made money hand over fist due to their aggressive investing at the Brooks Wilde Chase Fund. These guys are so rich they can get away with anything, or so the rumors go.

Trevor gives Elisabeth full reign of his estate in Westchester, letting her do as she pleases. He has only two rules. Rule One: she must obey and submit to him while she is living in his house. Rule Two: always answer the blue cell phone. She’s happy to oblige, because being with Trevor makes her want to obey, to love him the way he seems to be falling for her. But Elisabeth’s never been good at being the quiet sub; she’s feisty and gets off on the punishments more than she does by pleasing Trevor.

Elizabeth can’t submit to Trevor the way he needs her to, so his friend and business partner (and fellow BAD Boy) Roman takes her in hand. But love triangles can have sharp edges…and somebody’s bound to get hurt.

I’ve read the second in this series and it didn’t work for me. I wrote at Goodreads “It was like reading a frat boy and his BFF get into kink. Very light hearted, funny but the BDSM stuff came off weird. ” In reading the reviews, though, it sounds like the first one was harder edged and maybe more believable.

From the Isle of Skye to the battlefields of France, Duncan MacDonald has never escaped the memory of the true love he left behind. Deemed unworthy of a chieftain’s daughter, Duncan abandoned the lovely Moira to prove his worth in battle. Now, when called upon to rescue her from a rival clan, one thing is certain: Moira’s pull on his heart is stronger than ever.

Bartered away in marriage to a violent man, Moira will do anything to ensure she and her son survive. When a rugged warrior arrives to save her, the desperate beauty thinks her prayers have been answered-until she realizes it’s Duncan. The man who once broke her heart is now her only hope. Moira vows never again to give herself-or reveal her secrets-to the fierce warrior, but as they race across the sea, danger and desire draw them ever closer.

Mallory informs me that this book just won RT’s award for best Scottish Set Historical.

A talented landscape painter and portrait artist in her early thirties, Paris Sweeney has achieved enviable success: her work sells at an exclusive New York City gallery owned by her friend, Candra Worth, and her popularity is at an all-time high. Sweeney, as she is affectionately called by those close to her, loves her work and is content with her life.

Then she begins to notice odd changes: traffic lights turn green when she approaches. Her plants are in full bloom out of season. Perhaps they’re just coincidences, but she can’t ignore her dreams–lush, vivid, and drenched in vibrant hues–which are influencing her artwork. And she can’t deny her growing restlessness… Suddenly, impulsively, Sweeney finds herself unable to resist a night of intense passion with millionaire Richard Worth, Candra’s estranged husband. But the true dangers of her all-consuming urges are about to be revealed where Sweeney least expects it: in her paintings.

After a creative frenzy she can barely recall, Sweeney discovers she has rendered a disturbing image–a graphic murder scene. Against her better instincts, she returns to the canvas time and again, filling out each chilling detail piece by piece–a shoe, the body of a victim, and soon, the victim’s face. But when a shattering, real-life murder mirrors her creation, Sweeney is thrust into suspicious light. Now, with every stroke of her brush, she risks incriminating herself with her inexplicable knowledge of a deadly crime. And every desire–including her hungry attraction to Richard–is loaded with uncertainty and terrifying discovery as Sweeney races to unmask a killer.

I love this book. Everyone must buy. This has one of the sexiest non coitus scenes in a romance book. Heroine gets nearly hypothermic after her visions and in order to warm her, the hero disrobes and cuddles her close. They are an adorable couple. Drawbacks include over the top villains and their perverse sex lives but frankly, I didn’t really care. And I re-read this not so long ago (maybe last year) and I still enjoyed it.

Only Lord Peter has the wit to find the solution to these twelve baffling mysteries
Some aristocrats spend their lives shooting, but Lord Peter Wimsey is a hunter of a different kind: a bloodhound with a nose for murder. Before he became Britain’s most famous detective, Lord Peter contented himself with solving the crimes he came across by chance. In this volume of short stories, he confronts a stolen stomach, a man with copper fingers, and a deadly adventure at Ali Baba’s cave, among other conundrums. These mysteries tax not just his intellect, but his humor, knowledge of metallurgy, and taste for fine wines. It’s not easy being a gentleman sleuth, but Lord Peter is the man for the job. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Dorothy L. Sayers including rare images from the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College.

This is a collection of short stories. From a GR reviewer “Lord Peter appears in all twelve stories in this collection, which was originally published in 1928. Some of the stories are distinctly better than others. However, all of them are readable and all of them are of interest to a true fan of the sophisticated and urbane amateur detective and his equally fascinating creator. A number of the stories play with themes which are central in Lord Peter Wimsey novels published during the 1930s: for example, how a person found on a beach could have been murdered when there is only one set of footsteps to be found in the sand comes up again in Have His Carcase, which was published in 1932. “

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Jane Litte is the founder of Dear Author, a lawyer, and a lover of pencil skirts. She self publishes NA and contemporaries (and publishes with Berkley and Montlake) and spends her downtime reading romances and writing about them. Her TBR pile is much larger than the one shown in the picture and not as pretty.
You can reach Jane by email at jane @ dearauthor dot com

Comments

I don’t know why but Now You See Her is one of my favorite Linda Howard’s.
Parts of it are a bit over the top and there are a few eye rolling moments but it is still a page turner for me. And 99¢- sold!

@Jen: Well, ditto what Jen said! I could use some OTT today. Book is bought.

I want to read Lord Peter Wimsey, and short stories seem like a good way in (a stolen stomach!). Can anyone advise on whether they’re “readable” enough not to turn me off as a newcomer to the character?

@Carolyne – I remember them as readable, but I’m not sure whether, if I’d started there, I’d have fallen for Lord Peter the way I did. He’s worth investing in.
I happened to pick up Strong Poison (which is the first of the relationship books) first, and it was a good introduction to the series, but you could also try Murder must Advertise – because Sayers worked in an advertising agency, so the background to the story comes alive.

@Carolyne: Because they’re short stories, the focus is on the crime and its resolution. You don’t get the full Lord Peter personality of the novels. “Whose Body?” is the first of the full-length Lord Peter books.

Drawbacks include over the top villains and their perverse sex lives but frankly, I didn’t really care.

Is there even a Linda Howard book from that period (1990s) that didn’t have that? After the Night, Now You See Her, Shades of Twilight (wins the Most Over-the-Top Villainous Shaggers award) and Dream Man. I can’t remember if Son of the Morning has it? The only things I remember about SOTM: a) the first 20 pages were pretty much a guide to How to Hide From Villains Whilst On the Run and b) the hero certainly wasn’t shy.

I stayed up far too late last night reading Now You See Her, and I can see why you all loved it. The characters and their voices were just great – especially Sweeney, the artist who sees the world a lot differently then most people, and whose voice really reflects that. Now I feel like searching out some other Linda Howard backlist gems — any other recs??

Jane’s list hits most of the older Linda Howard books, but one of my all time favorites of hers (don’t know if it is old enough to classify) is “Open Season.” Daisy the heroine would make my top ten list of heroines (if I had one). This book has a whole series of my favorite tropes: Librarian heroine, makeover, kind of gruff but realistic “manly man” cop hero and seriously creepy villains. Added to that- it is genuinely funny and charming. Howard clearly knows the Southern milieu and writes about it brilliantly. I have re-read this book many, many times and HIGHLY recommend it.

Jane, I can’t imagine how organized your reading records must be if you actually already had that list.

@LeeF: There was actually a bit of that in Now You See Her, too… something along the lines of, “they sexed, and sexed, and they sexed some more. All through the night, did they sex. When she got dry, they used lube. And they will sex evermore, even though Good God, that sounds painful and exhausting and how will she walk tomorrow and how is this man 39 years old.” (That last part may have been in my head. :))

@Jen: My favorite Howards are the first two books in the Kell Sabin series, Midnight Rainbow and Diamond Bay. They were recently reprinted together in a 2-in-1 volume called Trouble. Also on my shelf: After the Night, (don’t judge me either) Shades of Twilight, and her time travel SFR which most people didn’t care for but I liked, Killing Time. Oh, and she had a novella I loved, which has appeared in a couple-few anthologies, most recently A Mother’s Touch. It’s called The Way Home.

I came to Howard with her Blair Mallory series and read from there on, and enjoyed them (I love Death Angel). A few months ago I started reading LH’s backlist since so many people seem to love them and remain unimpressed with her newer books, and I hate that most of them left me cold! I get that romantic suspense is supposed to be heavy on the romance, but it grew annoying for me to unravel the mystery/killer long before the h/h and to discover there were 80-100 pages left in the book! I prefer RS where the romance and the solving of the crime/escaping the bad guys are pretty neck-and-neck, or the acknowledgment of the relationship comes after the denouement of the suspense plot–the later LH titles provide this for me.

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